


In Their Midst

by EclecticInkling



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, literally just a fic about oikawa and this unnamed background character, small bits of iwaoi if you squint, the ghost fic no one asked for or wanted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 06:55:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6185032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EclecticInkling/pseuds/EclecticInkling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a story the members of the Seijou volleyball team tell each other every year when it’s time to receive their jerseys, about the player that never got to play, and why the #5 jersey remains neatly folded in the box every single season without fail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Their Midst

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starlitcities](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlitcities/gifts), [dreamsanddistractions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsanddistractions/gifts).



> Inspired by [ THIS POST ](http://eclecticinkling.tumblr.com/post/140434703431/starlitciities-synnodic-takkahiro-i-need) and a very long, detailed conversation with Remmi and Melina about #5 and ghosts. (Can't believe I ended up writing so much for this, and I blame you both entirely)

There’s a story the members of the Seijou volleyball team tell each other every year when it’s time to receive their jerseys, about the player that never got to play, and why the #5 jersey remains neatly folded in the box every single season without fail.

 

When Oikawa first hears the story, it was told thus: that on the day that particular team was to receive their jerseys, the kid meant for the #5 jersey never showed up. The team all assumed he was late or sick or something, and so they waited for him through practice. And then through the next day. And then they went searching for him, but never found him. Their classmates were no help. No one had seemed to see him. Even his own parents had no idea where he was, or even who he was. It was as if he never existed in the first place, except in the minds of that year’s volleyball team. But they decided to honor this shared memory of him anyways, and to save the #5 jersey for him, just in case.

 

“And that’s why we never give that jersey out,” the team captain says to the new first years. “Because it still belongs to him. Some times, you can almost feel him here, practicing with us.”

 

Oikawa calls bullshit on the whole thing. There are a lot of things Oikawa will believe in—the existence of aliens, for example—but a ghost boy who mysteriously disappeared from all memory is not one of them. It just isn’t logical.

 

(“As if believing in aliens is any better, Shittykawa,” Iwaizumi complains later. Oikawa, as usual, chooses to ignore his best friend’s appalling lack of faith.)

 

He chalks it up to being a team tradition, and just lets it be, never arguing it, just continuing his training in silence. He has bigger things to worry about than this so-called ghost. And so, Oikawa forgets about the whole legend. Privately laughs over it the next year when the new captain recounts the tale to the incoming first years. Keeps it at a safe distance as he begins to practice harder, stay longer, and work himself to the bone in order to escape the ever-growing shadow of Kageyama.

 

Just a shadow though. Not a ghost.

 

It’s on one of those nights when he stays to practice more that his knee starts giving him issues. Just a twinge at first, which grows into a dull ache the more he practices.

 

Oikawa frowns. He sets the volleyball in his hand onto the floor and leans over to massage his knee, wondering what’s wrong. Then a chill goes down his back, like ice being pressed against his spine, and he nearly falls face-first in the direction of the bench. It almost felt like a hand was pushing him off court, but Oikawa knows for a fact that he’s alone. Even Iwaizumi had left long ago with nothing more than a simple, “Don’t stay too late, dumbass.” A quick glance around the empty gym confirms Oikawa’s thoughts, but leaves him more confused than ever.

 

Maybe it’s a sign.

 

Oikawa leaves the gym only a few minutes later.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s during a practice match against Dateko when Oikawa feels that chill again, though this time it feels less like a physical touch and more like a call for attention, and it throws Oikawa completely out of focus for just a moment. But long enough for him to toss the ball too far, where it lands with a thud against the floor of Seijou’s gym, completely untouched by any of his teammates.

 

It’s the first time all year that Oikawa has flubbed a set. He can feel the eyes of his team all staring at him, wondering if something’s wrong. Iwaizumi in particular seems intent on staring him down. He alone of all Oikawa’s teammates knows the recent issues Oikawa’s had with his knee, and the force of his gaze conveys that silent question he doesn’t dare to ask in front of the team.

 

Oikawa shakes his head. He knows it’s not his knee which caused the problem. He’s in top shape physically, feeling better than ever after the trip to the doctor he took a few days before. There’s only the slightest whisper of ache in his leg, which is easy enough to play through without any effect to his sets.

 

He’s kind of in shock after that toss. He really didn’t think he’d misjudged the amount of strength needed to get the ball to the spiker on the far left of the court.

 

Except, of course, there was no spiker in that position. Hanamaki, who was playing left front, had assumed Oikawa would toss to Iwaizumi in the middle, and so had held back, didn’t even try an approach.

 

But Oikawa had seen someone approach. He would swear to it. He had seen, and had tossed, and a hand had hit the ball at just the right moment, except there was no hand and the ball had dropped, and now Oikawa doesn’t really know what to believe anymore. He knows what he saw, but the reality is completely different and he can’t quite wrap his mind around it.

 

He sits on the bench for the next couple of plays while the third year setter gets their team back on track and he tries to convince himself that what he saw was just his imagination run wild from adrenaline. He tries not to think about how the jersey of the imaginary spiker very clearly showed a #5.

 

* * *

 

 

There’s a shift in Oikawa after the practice match. Like some sort of switch has been flipped that Oikawa never knew existed, and Oikawa’s not quite sure he likes it.

 

He walks one, two, three, four, five steps down the hallway. Then another five, and another, all while counting five female students and five open windows and five cracks in the marble floor as he makes his way down the hall to classroom 5-A.

 

He doesn’t even belong in class 5. He knows Iwaizumi does, but then he also knows that Iwaizumi is out sick with the flu today and so isn’t in the classroom Oikawa’s feet are carrying him towards. There’s literally no reason for him to head that way, just as there’s no reason for him to count his breaths and heartbeats out in sets of fives, but no matter what he tells himself regarding this he can’t seem to shake the habit. It’s like his mind has become fixated on the number for some reason. He really can’t think of why.

 

Maybe Oikawa’s going crazy. Or maybe it’s just the stress of schoolwork, late nights, and Kageyama’s ever-growing threat finally catching up to him. Whatever it is, Oikawa really needs it to get better because he’s really starting to get creeped out. Not to mention how it’s effecting his playing.

 

“You’re so distracted lately,” Matsukawa points out during practice, after Oikawa’s fifth failed serve in a row. Oikawa doesn’t tell him that, after the first flub, he deliberately messed up the other four for some weird, abstract reason. “Is something going on?”

 

Oikawa taps the ball in his hand with his fingertips, trying and failing to drum out any rhythm except the five-count tempo currently filling his body, and tries to think of a way to put this whole, weird experience of his into words. Not that there’s any way to explain it without sounding like a complete lunatic, but Oikawa would like to try and retain some resemblance of sanity around his own teammates at the very least.

 

“I’m fine,” he answers instead with a plastic smile stretched wide across his face, realizing only a moment after saying it that it’s a complete lie and his entire body is aching like crazy. “Just a bit tired. I haven’t really been sleeping well recently, but don’t tell Iwa-chan I said that.”

 

He thinks he says it normally enough. Even sticks out his tongue and throws in a little peace sign in typical Oikawa fashion. Matsukawa gives him a suspicious look, but drops the subject in the end, much to Oikawa’s relief.

 

He doesn’t want to try explaining… whatever it is that’s happening right now. He can’t even explain it to himself. All he knows is that his knee is killing him, and he suddenly can’t jump serve to save his life, which is more than frustrating.

 

Practice ends without it getting any better and he decides, for the first time since he felt that chill a month ago, to stay after and continue working on his serves. There’s another practice match next week and he really needs to sort this all out before then. He can’t slip up in this match. Not again.

 

Volleyballs litter the floor before he knows it. He’s made a few over, but not enough to satisfy him, though he’s probably served more than he should with the way his knee is aching.

 

Just one more _,_ is what he tells himself. One more and then he’ll stop.

 

His knee gives out before he can even jump.

 

He crumbles to the floor. It feels like he’s torn something, knee unnaturally loose beneath all the pain, and he prays with all his might that it’s nothing serious. That he’s just overworked it, maybe sprained it at the worst, that he’ll still be able to play.

 

A wave of cold passes over him, and then he’s gasping, chest burning, almost like it’s caving in, and a thought that he’s pretty sure isn’t actually his own crosses his mind unbidden; _Not like this. Please, not like this._

 

It takes a minute, and a huge amount of effort, but Oikawa manages to drag himself over to his gym bag and fish out his phone. He explains as best he can his situation to Iwaizumi who, despite being sick himself, tells Oikawa not to move and that he’ll be there soon and God, Oikawa, I told you to take care of yourself, you idiot, why are you so impatient, you don’t need to work yourself into an early grave like this.

 

Oikawa’s just amazed that Iwaizumi was able to understand anything Oikawa said through the garbled mess of pained sobs and hiccupping breaths he’s been reduced to.

 

What feels like an eternity later, Iwaizumi arrives to collect Oikawa off the floor, and together they hobble out of the gym and back to Oikawa’s house, but not before Oikawa catches sight of the open supply closet and the #5 jersey sitting neatly on the shelf.

 

He also sees, faintly, a boy about his own age standing in front of the jersey.

 

The boy is staring straight at him.

 

* * *

 

Just a sprain, the doctor concludes. A bad one, but healable, as long as Oikawa rests properly and restrains from playing volleyball too soon.

 

Oikawa doesn’t protest—a first for him that actually makes his doctor check for a fever on top of the sprain, but Oikawa isn’t sick. He’s just in… well, shock seems an apt word to use for this situation.

 

He can’t quite decide if what he saw that night was just a product of pain-induced hallucination, or if, contrary to Oikawa’s original belief, there might just be some truth behind that story told when jerseys are being passed out. Either way, he can’t deny the fixation, the almost obsession, his mind’s formed with the student.

 

Oikawa has to know what happened back then. Has to figure out the truth behind the whole matter. He’s not sure if it’s even his own obsession any more, or if something else is possibly driving him, but regardless, he needs to know. He feels strangely _obligated_ to find out the truth of the matter.

 

It’s easy during practice. Iwaizumi, having learned what the doctor said about his sprain and resting, forces Oikawa to sit on the bench and pins him there with his patented, team-dubbed “mom glare” that no one in the Seijou volleyball club can disobey. Oikawa might have put up more of a fight if his mind weren’t so preoccupied by this weird ghost mystery of his. Instead, he uses his banishment from practice to pull out his phone and do some research, searching through school records and old newspaper archives and whatever else he can get his hands on to piece together some clues. That’s the real difficult part, he finds. Particularly because Oikawa doesn’t even know the kid’s name, or what years he attended Seijou.

 

“How should I know that?” Iwaizumi grouches when Oikawa asks about the kid while they’re walking home from practice. He’s in a particularly bad mood, (maybe because he didn’t get in enough spiking practice without Oikawa there to toss to him, or so Oikawa likes to think even though Yahaba had been there to pick up Oikawa’s slack), and he kicks a small rock across the street with extra vigor as he adds, “It’s just some ghost story, Shittykawa. Half of it probably isn’t true, if the story’s even real at all.”

 

Oikawa drops the subject and grabs Iwaizumi’s hand instead, lacing their fingers together like so often before.

 

He likes how they fit together, two halves of the same coin, completed and made stronger by each other in all things, partners for life. And the way Iwaizumi squeezes his hand as they walk tells Oikawa he feels the exact same way.

 

The kid’s real though, no matter what Iwaizumi thinks. Oikawa can feel it in his gut, and his intuition’s never failed him before. Eventually, Oikawa will run across something that’ll shed light on the whole situation, and then maybe… well, Oikawa’s not really sure what he’s going to do with the information once he figures out the truth. He can’t see how knowing what happened back then will help him in any immediate way. And that should give him pause and make him reconsider the late nights he pulls searching newspaper archives instead of studying or watching volleyball matches as is his custom, but it only makes him more determined instead.

 

“You look like shit,” Hanamaki observes at practice a few weeks later.

 

There’s a long pause, like Hanamaki’s waiting for Oikawa to turn all drama queen on him or something, which wouldn’t exactly be an uncommon reaction if he was his normal self. But Oikawa doesn’t even look up from his phone. He just keeps scrolling through the articles of a newspaper from the 1960s without much luck. A small frown tugs at the corner of his lips.

 

“Seriously,” Hanamaki sighs, and then pulls Oikawa’s phone right of his hands. “I mean this in the best of ways, but you honestly look like a truck just steamrolled right into your face.”

 

Oikawa glowers up at him. “You are the absolute worst at compliments. Now give me my phone.”

 

“Nah. I don’t really feel like it.” Grinning, he holds Oikawa’s phone out of reach and flips through the various website tabs Oikawa had been searching through. “Why are you even looking at this stuff? Got some sort of project due?”

 

“Something like that,” Oikawa mutters as he stands and uses his superior height to take his phone back, snatching it from Hanamaki’s hands before his friend can even blink.

 

There must be something in Oikawa’s expression that shows just how desperate and haunted he’s feeling, because Hanamaki releases the phone willingly. He doesn’t even make some sort of joke, but his expression softens into something almost sad right before he turns away with a nonchalant shrug.

 

“Hey, if you wanna work yourself into an early grave just for some weird project, I guess that’s your business. But the team would really like to have you back, y’know? We miss playing with you.”

 

It’s a surprisingly genuine admission, and Oikawa can’t help but to stare at Hanamaki in shock. Then, a chill races down his back. He jumps, glances over his shoulder at nothing, and when he turns back Hanamaki is already back on court with Matsukawa and Iwaizumi and the rest of the team that Oikawa so wants to be a part of.

 

The chill stays. It drapes over Oikawa’s entire back and left shoulder, like someone’s pressed up against him in order to look at his team as well, and somehow Oikawa can feel traces of an intense longing that isn’t entirely his own, but is also eerily familiar. All of it centered on the interactions happening between his teammates on the volleyball court.

 

The longing stretches out towards his teammates, wanting to be out on that court with them, to feel the camaraderie of teamwork, and feel the satisfaction of a volleyball slapping against the skin of his arms. To work until muscles are burning, breaths turned into desperate pants, adrenaline pumping through veins while diving for a ball too far away to reach. To win or lose together, as a team-- something he never got to experience.

 

Oikawa shakes his head. That isn’t right. He’s played through matches plenty of times with his team. Of course he can’t do that _now,_ but he’s definitely been there before, with both winning and losing, so he knows these feelings aren’t actually his. At least, not all of them.

 

He can’t deny his own yearning to be back on the court, any more than he can deny the sun shining in the sky or the fact that aliens exist. But then who can blame him for wanting to get back on court when he has the best team in all of Japan? Having to sit out of practice is the worst kind of pain for Oikawa, who’d rather be out there risking further injury than sitting sedately on the bench, cowed into submission by the combined influence of both Iwaizumi’s cold glower and Oikawa’s own, unhealthy fixation on the past of the Seijou volleyball club.

 

He breathes in, and breathes out. He’s thinking too much about this. The late nights of research and lack of sleep are getting to his mind, that’s all. Nothing more. He just needs to take the night off to rest and he’ll be good as new. No crazy emotions, no random thoughts, no more looking like death warmed over.

 

He leaves his phone overnight on the charger in the clubroom in order to avoid temptation and manages to crawl into bed hours earlier than he normally would have otherwise. He gets the first decent amount of sleep he’s had in nearly a month.

 

(It doesn’t cure his fixation, though. And when he returns to the clubroom the next day, he finds his phone exactly where he left it, but now he also finds the boy he saw when his knee gave out sitting right there next to it.)

 

* * *

 

“So are you just going to follow me around all day now?” he asks the boy after a few days.

 

As usual, the boy doesn’t answer but just stares across the campus lawn at all the students taking their lunch break outside. He seems unconcerned, but then that’s just the expression he always has until Oikawa starts packing up to go home. Then his expression shifts, becoming increasingly more afraid as Oikawa walks towards the school gates and leaves the boy behind.

 

That’s the one good thing Oikawa’s learned about this whole situation; the boy will stick to him like glue throughout the school day, but he either can’t or won’t leave Seijou grounds, and so Oikawa can at least fall asleep in peace.

 

“I don’t know what you want,” Oikawa finally admits to him. “Aren’t ghosts supposed to exist because they have unfinished business or something? Can’t you at least tell me what it is you want? Or even just who you are?”

 

The boy looks at him for a moment, then gets up and walks away, form growing more and more faint with every step until he disappears completely, and Oikawa is left even more baffled than before.

 

A part of him hopes this means the boy won’t be returning, but the majority of him knows he won’t be losing his ghost-friend any time soon, and this thought of his is confirmed when he returns to his classroom to find his phone on top of his desk with the internet tab open. Definitely not how he left his phone when he went outside for lunch.

 

Well, Oikawa doesn’t have the time to go searching on the internet for whatever it is the boy wants him to find, so he stuffs his phone away and forgets all about the incident. The next time he sees the boy, it’s as he’s about to head home for the day, and this time Oikawa detects a small amount of impatience mixed in with his fear, for reasons Oikawa can’t understand.

 

“Maybe he doesn’t like being alone,” Oikawa muses. He wouldn’t blame the kid if that was the case. But something tells Oikawa there’s more to it than that, and with every passing day he grows more and more sure that he’s missing something crucial in this whole situation.

 

The kid is growing impatient, restless, insistent. He wants Oikawa to discover something, that much is sure from how often he’ll find his phone sitting in plain sight with the internet tab open. And Oikawa tries to find whatever the kid is trying to show him, he really does, but his schoolwork quickly piles up and the mystery is forgotten under all his homework.

 

The kid starts throwing things to get his attention whenever they’re alone in the clubroom.

 

Just a week later, and Oikawa’s doctor tells him he’s healed enough to start participating in basic exercises. Of course, Oikawa just takes this as an all clear to return to normal training, and he steps back onto the court during their next practice with mixed feelings of triumph and anxiety.

 

He’s missed just about two weeks worth of practice, which doesn’t seem like it would matter much, but it _does_ and Oikawa isn’t about to let some stupid sprain and a new, weird ability to see ghosts throw him off his game with Interhigh just around the corner. He ignores the boy, who’s taken to trailing after him with an almost frantic expression, and starts pushing himself to get stronger, get better. Starting with his serves.

 

Hit after hit after hit, long after the rest of his teammates had gone home. He knows Iwaizumi left with a disapproving frown only half an hour before, knows the ghost that’s been following him around all week is looking at him the exact same way now, but Oikawa can’t help himself at this point. He has to perfect this serve so he can be useful to his team this time around. He won’t let himself be the reason they don’t go to nationals. Not again.

 

He throws the volleyball up and takes a running leap. His palm smacks the ball just right. It flies over the net and lands in the back right corner of the court, just as Oikawa was hoping. It’s a perfect serve, exactly what Oikawa had been wanting, except that when he lands, he feels his knee creak and wobble something awful. Like it’s about to snap right in half underneath his weight.

 

A volleyball hits him in the back of the head and knocks him off his feet before his knee can give out. He topples to the ground with a heavy thud.

 

“What the hell?” he yells, rolling over on his back to glower at the ghost boy across the gym. The boy tosses another ball at him, aimed straight at his face, which Oikawa knocks aside. And then another. And another. Until Oikawa finally yells, “Stop! Stop it! I’ll stay down on the ground! Just stop throwing things at me!”

 

There’s a soft thud as the volleyball the boy had been holding drops to the ground, and Oikawa lets out a slow breath. He looks up at the boy, who’s staring impassively back at him, with fear and confusion, not truly comprehending what’s happening or why the boy is attacking him _now_ after days of complacency. Weeks even, if Oikawa counts all those moments before the boy completely showed himself.

 

“I don’t understand,” he admits to the boy in a whisper. “What is it that you want from me? Just tell me. Please.”

 

The boy stares at him long and hard, almost seeming to look through him to Oikawa’s very soul. Then, he vanishes.

 

In his place, Oikawa finds a framed photograph. It’s of the Seijou volleyball team from ten years ago. And, in it, right in the middle of the somber team, an empty chair with the #5 jersey draped over the top.

 

* * *

 

Oikawa cancels his plans for that weekend.

 

Instead of eating unhealthy amounts of pizza and watching a marathon of the best bad horror films in existence with the other second years, he locks himself up in his room with his computer and the picture the ghost had left behind. It gives him a frame of reference for his research, and finally, _finally,_ he’s able to make headway in his search for the truth.

 

Articles pop out of nowhere, all related to the incident that left Seijou’s team broken. Oikawa reads every single one.

 

By the end of the weekend, he feels like he finally understands.

 

* * *

 

Oikawa is unanimously elected to be captain after their loss at the interhigh tournament, following the retirement of all their third years. The captain gives Oikawa several hearty pats on his shoulder and a good ten minutes’ worth of encouraging words and advice, but Oikawa really doesn’t take it all in.

 

He’s not in shock. He pretty much expected this outcome, and he knows he’ll be a good captain, especially with Iwaizumi at his side as his vice. It’s more that Oikawa’s focused on something else altogether. A promise he made to himself long before interhighs, when he was given that picture of the team from ten years before.

 

Matsukawa and Hanamaki host a small party for their team to celebrate Oikawa’s new post, (though it’s really more to raise the spirits of their team after losing to Shiratorizawa yet again, no matter how much the two of them deny it). After a few hours, when Oikawa’s sure everyone’s too tired or distracted to notice, he sneaks out of Matsukawa’s house and walks through the darkness of the late night to Seijou, where he opens the gym with the key the previous captain passed on to him.

 

The gym’s lit only by the moonlight, just bright enough for Oikawa to see where he’s going as he walks over to the club’s supply closet. He doesn’t really need the lights for what he’s about to do, though. It won’t take more than a few minutes, and Oikawa can find what he needs for it just fine in the dark anyways.

 

He pulls down the small box from the top shelf and carries out to the middle of the gym. Taking a seat on the ground, he pulls out an old photograph and the #5 jersey that’s always kept tucked away, and he places both down onto the court.

 

The ghost boy doesn’t appear. Not that Oikawa is expecting him to.

 

“You tried to protect me,” he says to the boy anyways, hoping, wherever he is right now, he can still hear Oikawa. “I’m captain of this team now. I just wanted to tell you…You’ll always have a place on my team, if you want it. Not just as a story, but as a teammate. This jersey will always be yours.”

 

There’s complete silence in the gym after his declaration. Oikawa takes a deep breath in the quiet peace of the gym, then lets it out. He leaves the jersey on the floor while he stands and puts the box with the photo back on the shelf. It’s still sitting there when he crosses the gym again to leave for the night.

 

A rush of cold air blows past him as he opens the door, however, stronger than he’s ever felt before.

 

He turns around, sees the jersey missing from the floor, and then sees the ghost boy standing across the gym, watching him. He’s less translucent than before, and Oikawa can finally see his features and short, black hair clearly, as if Oikawa’s finally tuned in to the right frequency on an old TV or radio. Static is still present, but it almost doesn’t matter with how clear the picture is.

 

The boy is wearing the #5 jersey. He’s smiling at Oikawa, warm as the summer sun.

 

Oikawa smiles back.

 

* * *

 

There’s a story the members of the Seijou volleyball team tell each other every year when it’s time to receive their jerseys, about the player that never got to play, and why the #5 jersey remains neatly folded in the box every single season without fail.

 

It’s a ghost story in every sense that matters. A story about a boy who never showed up to receive his jersey, whose existence disappeared entirely except in the memories of the old Seijou team, and how the boy continues to haunt the gym and the volleyball club, playing right alongside its members as if he’d never died in the first place.

 

Oikawa smiles when the story is told to the new first years, lets them be frightened by Matsukawa and Hanamaki’s dramatics, even if the story falls short of what Oikawa now knows to be true. But that’s alright.

 

At some point, he’ll sit the team down and correct the story. He’ll speak for the ghost boy on their team that only he can see. He’ll tell them the whole truth. And the truth of the story is this:

 

At that time, all those years ago, the team’s #5 player, a spiker of incredible power, had just been recognized as their ace player for that year. Under the pressure, he ended up staying late after practice to work on his jump serves, never paying attention to the growing pain in his knee, even when both his legs were literally trembling from the effort of standing.

 

It was on the day when the team received their jerseys that his obstinance brought everything crashing down. His knee gave out as he ran across the street to the school, and he collapsed onto the road right as a car came speeding his way.

 

His injury, his complete disregard for his health in favor of getting stronger, led to his death that day, and then to the complete dissolution of the team that had become his family.

 

Left him alone, silently protecting the members of the Seijou team, until Oikawa gave him the jersey he’d been waiting for all these years and welcomed him back onto the team.

 

“And that’s why we never give the #5 jersey to anyone else,” Hanamaki concludes for the wide-eyed first years. “He’s still a part of our team. And some times, when the universe aligns, you can almost feel him playing alongside us. Our very own team ghost.”

 


End file.
